


Anthracite

by Paranormal_Shitness



Series: Firebender Jet AU [2]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: 3rd Person Limited, AU, Angst, Animal Death, Animal Gore, Art, Brother/Sister - Freeform, F/F, F/M, Fan Art, Firebender! Jet, Hurt/Comfort, Incest, Jet Is An Asshole, M/M, Mind Control, Multi, PTSD, Unreliable Narrator, also for meat purposes, brain washing, for meat purposes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-06
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-01-24 10:57:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21337129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paranormal_Shitness/pseuds/Paranormal_Shitness
Summary: Following his failed assassination attempt on Fire Lord Ozai, Jet is imprisoned on the Boiling Rock, subject to Azula’s whims and Dai Li tampering.Follow up to “From The Singed Earth”
Relationships: Aang/Katara, Aang/Katara (Avatar), Azula/Mai (Avatar), Azula/Mai/Ty Lee (Avatar), Azula/Ty Lee (Avatar), Jet/Katara, Jet/Zuko (Avatar), Sokka/Suki (Avatar), Zuko/Azula (Avatar), Zuko/Mai (Avatar)
Series: Firebender Jet AU [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1529675
Comments: 19
Kudos: 61





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This will be updating much more slowly than the last installment because I’m writing it fresh instead of finding it mostly finished lmao. I’m not sure how much of the rest of Season 3 it will cover, but it will follow canon as closely as possible due to the fate elements at play in the source material.
> 
> Jet is post mind fuck here and almost entirely divorced from reality. If he confuses you that’s because he himself is confused. 
> 
> I’ll be adding art to this and also the last fic as I have time to draw it. Currently between two big commissions with time budgets so lmao. Yay Christmas season!

Routine had replaced all else. Rise, clean, eat, exercise, sleep. Again and again and again. It felt so endless that he felt he might loose his mind in entirety. There was an energy under his skin beginning to build there. An itching fit to kill him. 

“You’re still afraid of it,” Azula said. 

Looking at her called back something grotesque and terrifying. Something he couldn’t quite remember most days. But she came to him with a disturbing regularity.

“The second you loose your fear,” she continued, holding a hand out so that curls of blue fire wound around her fingers, “You become immune to the heat.”

She’d been insisting this was true for what must have been weeks now. Just like she insisted Zuko abandoned him here. He wasn’t sure he knew what was true anymore or not. When she was trying to trick him and when she was trying to help.

“I abandoned fear,” Azula was telling him. 

Jet could not remember a time in his life he hadn’t been afraid of something. 

“The day we watched my pathetic brother forfeit that Agni Kai was the day I awakened. From the ashes of Zuko loosing everything, my true self was born.”

Fire. When she spoke of the incident he could see it as clear as though it were still happening and part of him felt that the event had somehow burned him by proxy. Something in him felt like it had always been afraid of fire. Like the fear was integral to his identity. As though it were the foundation he’d built himself on.

“That was the day I knew I was destined to be Fire Lord.”

“I don’t understand why you’re helping me,” He said.

Around them, the room was a humming of factory noises and distant voices. Azula smiled. “You’re not supposed to,” she said sweetly.

Jet stared at her feet, the light boots she always wore with their upturned toe, all pointed just like she was.

“I wouldn’t worry if I were you,” she was assuring him then. “We’ll break through this little phobia soon enough and then you’ll be free of it.”

“Victim of your charity,” he joked.

Azula offered him a small chuckle. “Oh.” She said. “If only you knew.”

Jet didn’t know most things but Azula was always very helpful. Very familiar. Consistent. She laid a cold hand across the back of his neck and he tried not to shiver. Azula hated it when he shivered. When he was confused, she always knew how to make sense of things. 

“You’re coming along nicely,” she said, trailing her fingernails up across the base of his skull before pulling away again. “Your rehabilitation gives me hope for my brother.”

Zuko. Just the mention of him brought up the image of that scar. Such a deeply defining moment etched into him forever.

Azula was smiling at him. “You will bring Zuzu back to me, won’t you?” She asked.

“Of course,” he answered.

Her eyes narrowed and that heat in her in her that seemed to suck all other heat from the room snapped like a set of reptilian teeth around her insides, “At any cost.”

Jet nodded. He said, “Of course.”

Zuko felt like a far away memory. So distant as to be untouchable. Being without him after spending his entire lifetime dedicated to the Prince’s protection felt wrong deep into the marrows of his bones. 

There were times, when Jet was alone in his cell and the sound of metal on metal and hot air on cold pipes seemed to dim, that he could lay there, focusing on the flicker of the flame inside him as he breathed and call back old memories. Games they’d played when they were little. The triumphs and failures. Weathering Zuko’s banishment together. They were all so vivid and fresh. As if the patina of age had never touched his mind. He could remember every detail. Zuko’s face, the smell of his skin. A painful kind of nostalgia.

A kind that bordered on hopelessness.

The disturbance came on a day just like any other. It wasn’t marked by anything out of the ordinary. Azula hadn’t been there to pass along information or tell him what to do. 

Liu had come to him, beads of secrets in his lips, licked them all up and said, “A guard was arrested.”

Jet frowned. “A guard?” He asked

“Looks like someone broke onto the island and stole a uniform. He’s being released into gen-pop now.”

“Do we know where his cell is yet?” Jet asked.

Liu shook his head. The man was another of Azula’s charity cases and that put him easily at Jet’s disposal. She’d set up a neat little hierarchy within the prison, leaving him to oversee her other projects. It was a sign of trust. 

“We will soon enough though. Guy has a pretty distinctive face.” There was a grimace as this was said. Almost like an uncontrollable sympathy pain.

Jet felt something shift hot in his stomach. “What do you mean?” He asked.

“He’s got a burn over his left eye.” Liu said. “Looks like someone was trying to kill him.”

Anxiously, Jet tamped down his own excitement. Plenty of people could have been burned in similar fights, he told himself. A second hand rumor about a scar proved nothing, he reasoned. But something in him did know. Knew it as if he could feel the Prince’s fire first hand. 

When Tsuchen pointed him out on the yard, there wasn’t a flicker of surprise in Jet. Just a sound resolve to bring his charge home properly. Seeing him after so long was unreal. Jet let Tsuchen crowd him along a wall in the yard, orbiting the Prince with a wide berth so as not to be noticed.

“He’s been asking about you,” the guard said. “One of the other guards mentioned that she’d spoken to him before he was arrested. She said he wanted to know about you.”

“Does Azula know about this yet?” Jet asked.

“We haven’t been able to get word to her,” Tsuchen said. 

Jet could see the glare on his face even behind the visor. Azula was notoriously difficult to reach even at the best of times and she’d been honest that things had been more difficult in the war effort lately. But Tsuchen was never quite so understanding simply because he had so much less to be grateful for. 

“I’ll take care of it,” Jet assured him. “The Prince and I were close when we were younger.”

Tsuchen chuffed a breath of haughty air at him. “Obviously,” the man said, grumbling at the prying look Jet gave him. “I said he was asking after you,” he explained.

“And what do you think that means?” Jet asked.

“I think he’s here to rescue you,” Tsuchen said.

Jet almost laughed. “From what?”

Tsuchen gave him a withering look. The kind of thing that was easy to wave off. 

“Look, just tell me what his work detail is and I’ll handle the rest of it.” Jet assured him.

“He’s with the east wing cleaning crew,” Tsuchen said. “They’re cleaning hallway fourteen today.” Then the man took a deep breath and added a tight, “For the record, _Jet_, I think this is a terrible idea.”

Jet threw him a rude salute as the guard gave him one last shove on the arm for extra realism and stormed off. 

“Fucking dick,” he swore as the man drew out of earshot. When Azula came to collect Zuko, he was going to make a complaint about Tsuchen’s questionable loyalty. See what that did.

Getting his work detail transferred was the easy part. Staying unnoticed while he got an ear on what Zuko was up to was more difficult. They shuffled two lines abreast to their station, brooms in their hands, Zuko lagging beside a female prisoner about his own age. An inside contact maybe.

Jet hung around the corner as they picked themselves a spot tucked behind some stairs. Plans and plots hidden in the lines of their taught faces. Something he knew well from the time he’d spent in the palace with the royal siblings. Whispers, secrets, pranks, they’d had it all.

But they said nothing, sweeping surreptitiously, waiting as an unfamiliar guard approached. 

“Oh good,” he said in a voice Jet felt he should have known. “You two have met.”

“Actually, we met a long time ago,” the girl said, but Jet was focussed on the familiarity of the guard’s voice.

He knew the guy from somewhere outside the prison but placing the voice seemed impossible. It wasn’t a voice he liked, that much was certain but who’s dislikable voice was it?

“So tell us about your friend,” the Guard was saying when Jet tuned back into the conversation. They had ducked down out of sight behind the stairs now and Jet shimmied quietly along the metal floor for a better vantage point.

“We are _not_ friends,” Zuko snapped under his breath. “I just owe him.”

The guard nodded as Jet peered at him from around the corner. “Owe him enough to kidnap him,” he said in a sarcastic tone.

They were so wrapped in the conversation, they seemed not to notice him step out beside them and lean over the railing. 

“Well, I’ve already kidnapped him once so it’s not really a big deal,” Zuko admitted sulkily. “Look it doesn’t matter how or why,” he snapped then as the guard made to speak, “I owe him. There’s complicated history. He’s here. I’m getting him out.”

“Fine,” the guard said. “Then first order of business is making contact with this guy so who is he?”

“Yeah,” Jet cut in. “Who is he?”

There was a crackling sensation on the air. Something that burned so hot for a split second, it seemed to leach the heat out of the air around them almost like Azula’s fire before it equalized. Zuko was looking at him, scarred eye trying desperately to widen.

“Hey, hot stuff,” Jet said jumping the railing. “Long time no see.”

“You’re,” Zuko stammered. “I’m-“

“Why didn’t you just say it was Jet?” The guard demanded.

Jet pinned him with a look. The guy really was familiar but he still didn't know why. “Have we met?” He asked.

“You fucked my sister.” The guard answered him with a flat look.

The comedy of it wasn’t lost on Jet, or on the girl either from the looks of it. Even Zuko slammed his lips into a thin line, brow hiking up his forehead like it did when he was fighting amusement. 

“Man,” Jet said. “Wish I remembered that.”

“I’m Suki,” the girl said as the guard spluttered through his low comprehension.

“You the sister?” Jet asked.

“No,” she told him with a laugh. “Girlfriend.”

Jet gave her a sage nod. “Right so it’d be gauche if I fucked you too.”

Zuko punched him in the arm, hard, as the girl tried to stifle another laugh and the guard’s spluttering reached a frenzy. 

“I like your friends,” Jet told him.

Which got him a very predictable, “They’re not my friends.”

“Like I’m not your friend? Did you even know I was here?” Jet asked.

The look on Zuko’s face was exasperated. “Who did you think we were tal-“

“Guys, let’s not waste time getting caught up with each other yet” the guard snapped. “I think I’ve got a way out of here and we can’t waste any time.”

“I checked out the coolers again. The whole point of them is to keep firebenders contained, right?”

“Yeah,” Zuko answered surreptitiously.

“So they’re completely insulated and sealed to keep the cold in,” the guard continued. Jet felt he was starting to see where this was going. “Well to keep the cold in they also have to keep the heat out, right?”

The girl shook her head. “Sokka just get to the point already,” she said.

“He wants to use one to cross the lake,” Jet explained.

“Exactly!” The guard agreed. “It’d make the perfect boat to get across the water.”

“Look,” Jet said. “I been here a while and I know escape is suicide. The warden’s got a mad on for his unbroken record or some shit. But this,” he paused, pointing at the guard, “might actually work.”

“Thank you, stealer of my sister’s virginity,’ the guard said. “Now, first we need someone to unbolt the cooler from the inside,” he added, pulling a wrench out of his waistband.

It was clear by all intents, the body language, he meant to hand it over to Zuko but Jet stopped him. “Royalty doesn’t do dirty work,” he justified as he snatched the wrench up. “Besides, I’ve got a terrible reputation to trade on.”

Zuko and the guard both glared at him as he stood up. They squared a second, Zuko still crouched on the floor at about knee height, Jet standing over him. 

“Think fast,” was the only warning Jet gave before kicking the Prince bodily out into the hallway.

“I told you stay away from me, freak!” He shouted as he followed after.

Zuko ‘s fire snapped and guttered as he regained his footing but the Prince restrained it.

“You think I’m gonna waist my time with traitor scum like you?” Jet bellowed, still pressing his advantage. The entire work detail turned on them, eyes wide.

Jet could hear Sokka yelling something at the other guards. He took a deep breath in, as he pulled his arm back and let it out as he threw his weight into the movement, shoving forward. It came out uncontrolled, a bigger blast than intended, rolling out over the metal of the floor and up the walls. 

There was more shouting but Jet had almost lost himself in the feeling already. It was so infrequent that he was able to bend these days and the release was almost irresistible. Zuko’s face went pale as Jet recoiled into a feint, striking out with his feet.

“No firebending!” A familiar voice was shouting but Jet couldn’t care to listen. 

He could remember watching the skin on the left half of Zuko’s face curl and crisp under the Fire Lord’s power and part of him wanted to do that. Part of him missed the smell. He reached out, hand wreathed in fire, seeking to close it over the Prince’s arm at least. Anything. Make him really feel it. 

The look on Zuko’s face was priceless when the guards actually managed to get hands on Jet. He went out easy with so many benders holding him down, eyes on Zuko the whole time as they pinned him to the floor. He could see fear there. Real fear. Part of him felt bad but the rest had an urge to savor it. 

“I’ll fucking end you,” he shouted as they dragged him away and he could tell by the look on Zuko’s face, the Prince knew that somewhere deep down, he meant it. 

They’d been like brothers until the Avatar. So close they’d been inseparable. Nothing between them except Azula and her games. At times, it’d been more than that. A lot more. A confusing amount more. But all that seemed far away now.

Now, the air in the cooler was frigid and where his bare skin met the floor, the walls, it grew even worse. The kind of cold that leeches the heat right out of your body. Jet closed his eyes and remembered the breathing technique Zuko had taught him.

Zuko had taught him because Iroh hadn’t cared to. Because the old man had always shown a clear favoritism.

The bolts ached and whined as he pried them free, letting tiny bursts of warm air slide through a breath at a time. All in all, the work only took him ten minutes, but Sokka left him there at least fifteen for appearances sake. 

When the door finally shuddered open, he stood there, staring down, the perfect picture of imperial might if he’d just been a few inches taller. “I can take you back to your cell now if you’ve learned your lesson,” he said.

“Oh I’ve learned it alright,” Jet assured him, flashing the metal he’d tucked into the hem of his shirt. 

Sokka made an appreciative noise. “I got Suki and Zuko out of their cells a few minutes ago,” he said leaning through the door. “they’ll be waiting for us a-.”

But Jet cut him off, dragging him into the cooler as sudden footsteps came clomping down the hallway. 

“Hey,” the imposter grumbled as Jet slid the door almost all the way shut.

“Shh,” he hissed back.

”Yeah, new arrivals coming in at dawn.” A man’s voice was saying.

“Anyone interesting?” A woman speaking this time. 

“Nah just the usual,” the first guard answered. “Some robbers. Couple traitors. Some war criminals.

“Dad,” Jet heard Sokka mumble.

Frowning, he turned to the false guard. “What?” He demanded.

“We came here for my father,” Sokka explained. 

“And me,” Jet clarified.

“You’re right,” Sokka said. “I can’t risk all our freedom on the slim chance my dad will show up.”

The entire cooler unit was heavy once they’d pulled it out of its shell. Keeping it from making noise bumping against the door or walls on their way was an unruly and difficult task but between the two of them they managed to heave the thing outside and brace it with their bodies as they slid it down the slope to the water.

Silently, Zuko and Suki rushed to help them ease it down the hill.

“Everybody in the cooler,” Sokka said as they reached the waterline. “Let’s go.” 

Seamlessly they all turned it end over end until it faced longways into the water. Then Sokka turned, sinking onto his haunches in front of a nondescript rock under which he’d hidden his and Zuko’s things. And looking at them, with everyone’s eyes on him, he hesitated.

“Sokka?” Zuko asked.

“We need to leave,” Sokka said gravely. “but there’s a chance my dad’s being brought in at dawn tomorrow.”

“Aren’t you the one who said you wanted to redeem yourself?” Zuko asked. “Your honor? This is your chance to do it.”

“Your dad,” Suki said.

“If I had just cut my losses at the invasion,” Sokka replied, “Maybe we wouldn’t be in this mess. Maybe sometimes it’s best to just call it quits before you fail.”

“Sounds good to me,” Jet said but Zuko said, “No it’s not,” with so much conviction Jet doubted anyone heard his input.

“Look, Sokka, you’re gonna fail a lot before things work out,” the Prince insisted, clearly speaking from personal experience.

“That supposed to make me feel better?”

“No,” Jet said, getting a glare from Suki. “Give up,” he insisted.

“Even though you’ll probably fail over and over and over again,” Zuko ploughed on.

“Seriously,” Sokka insisted, “not helping.”

“You _have_ to try every time,” Zuko said. Jet bristled as he laid a hand on Sokka’s shoulder. “You can’t quit because you’re afraid you _might_ fail.”

“If you two are done cuddling, can we get a move on?” Jet demanded. 

There was a beat as Sokka took a breath and stood there with his eyes closed. “No,” he said. “The three of you go, I’ll stay.”

“Great Idea,” Jet said, entirely sincere as he swung a single leg into the cooler.

But Suki said, “No. Sokka I’m not leaving without you.” And worse even still, Zuko said, “I’m staying too.”

“Great,” Jet snapped, hauling his leg back out of the cooler. “So we just did all of this for nothing and there’s no way we’re gonna be lucky enough to undo it without anyone noticing which means the whole plan is blown.”

“Yeah,” Sokka said. “Kind of like that dam above Gaipan village.”

“What?” Jet demanded, but Sokka just moved the rock back over his things without saying anything. 

“Leave the cooler there,” he ordered. “I’m bringing my dad home.”

“It’s not like no one will notice,” Jet complained as they started the trek back up the steep incline to the prison.

“We’ll figure it out when it comes to it,” was all Sokka really had to say for himself.

“We gave up our only chance of escaping,” Jet said. “I hope we haven’t just made a huge mistake.”

The alarm didn’t wasn’t raised until they were well back inside the prison, as the sun was cresting the horizon and starting to itch under Jet’s skin. 

“They’re locking us down,” he warned. 

“Is that bad?” Zuko asked.

“Yes.” The last time there’d been a lock down, Jet had caused it himself by letting himself get worked into a panic. He’d lit up an entire cell block and burned fifteen people, ten of them guards. “If they catch us outside of where we ought to be we’re fucked.”

“Wait,” Sokka said, pointing up toward the control platform that managed visitation and prisoner intake. “the gondola’s moving!”

“We don’t have time for this,” Jet warned but there was no use. 

Sokka’s eyes had gone wide with anticipation and he only cared for one thing. “Dad.”

The infectious nature of his emotions took the group as the gondola edged it way slowly to a stop at the station.

“Come on,” Sokka muttered under his breath.

Distantly, they saw the door open, watched the first prisoner step out.

“Is that him?” Zuko asked.

“My dad doesn’t have a nose ring.”

The prisoners proceeded out along the station, panic growing in visibly Sokka’s throat as they watched until finally they ordered the last man off. Instantly, the anxiety melted away.

“So that’s daddy, huh?” Jet asked.

“Yeah,” Sokka breathed.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New Fanart On Chapter 1  
started thinking about updating this when Netflix put Avatar up but didn't really get motivated until someone went through and left a ton of comments on the first part of this series. So thank user anon+q if you've been waiting for this they don't have an account here but they certainly get to take credit for me writing this chapter. especially because i'd already written it and then lost it when my last computer was stolen.

“I have a plan,” Sokka said. “You all need to make it back to your cells and I need to make it to that guard tower. I’ll update you on the specifics once I’ve got everything locked down. Now go.”

“Fuckin’ bossy,” Jet complained once the other boy was out of earshot.

“Hey,” Zuko chided, “He’s gotten us this far.”

Which Suki obviously agreed with, “Sokka’s a good leader,” she insisted as they made their way back to the cell blocks.

“I don’t trust that kid,” Jet said staunchly.

“You know that’s just like you, Jet,” Zuko said. “Fucking someone’s sister and then acting like he’s the untrustworthy one.”

“Well I never fucked yours,” Jet argued. This plunged them into an awkward silence until it was time they part ways. 

“Sokka will come get us when he’s ready,” Suki assured as their last little goodbye, looking Jet deep in the eyes as she said, “Trust me on that.”

“Sure,” he told her blankly and that was that. 

Sokka didn’t come in to update him for what seemed at least an entire hour. “Okay,” he said, “I’ve been over it with my dad and he agreed there’s only one way out of here. We’re gonna hijack the gondola and take the warden hostage so they can’t cut the lines.”

“No,” Jet said flatly.

“You don’t really have a choice,” Sokka said. “It’s either you’re in or you stay here.”

“Okay,” Jet said, “so what’s the Azula contingency plan? Tell me how you’re getting around her and maybe I’ll buy in on your harebrained scheme.”

“You think Azula’s gonna be a problem?” Sokka asked.

Jet rolled his eyes and sank down against the wall so he was crouched on his bedroll, “I know she is,” he said. “Don’t you think Azula’s been waiting for this? Kind of fishy how Zuko would just know that I’m being held in the highest security prison in the country. I’m a carrot, she’s a stick. She’s probably on her way here as we speak.”

“Oh no,” Sokka said, sinking down along the wall beside him.

“Damn right,” Jet agreed.

“If Azula comes, she’ll have Mad and Ty Lee as backup,” Sock said.

Jet grunted, remembering the dynamics he’d seen last time he was with the Princess’ little elite group, that didn’t seem such a sure bet to him. “I don’t know,” he said. “If I know Mai, she’s more on Zuko’s side and I’m positive Ty Lee is more on Mai’s.”

“How do you know that?” Sock asked.

Jet spat a hiss into the air. “Please, Azula’s little Harem’s easy to pick apart.”

“You’re really different,” Sokka said then. “When we met again in Ba Sing Se, I really didn’t believe you that you were trying to get things on track but you’ve really changed.”

Jet had no idea what he was talking about but then again almost everything about Ba Sing Se was a blur. The whole uprising had happened so fast. 

“I mean, Katara told me about what happened when Azula shot Aang. I knew you were a bender, but I never expected to see you-“ here the other boy trailed off, catching the wary look in Jet’s eyes. “Sorry,” he said. “I know the last person you wanna hear this from is me, but I think you’ve really grown.”

“Thanks,” Jet said flatly. “I didn’t realize you were in Ba Sing Se.”

Sokka shook his head like that wasn’t a problem. “A lot of things happened, but I’m glad you found us,” he said.

“Yeah,” Jet said. “Katara’s your sister,” he postulated, because it was a strong feeling he had. The name brought a face to mind, a pretty one, dark hair and blue eyes, brown skin just like Sokka’s. She looked like him in her way when Jet really studied the other boy.

Sokka blinked at him slowly. “Yeah,” he said. “The two of you didn’t really know each other long but you got close.”

That was normal, Jet thought erroneously. Kids who had suffered loss made tight bonds fast. “Sorry, it’s just so much has happened,” Jet said, but he had this eerie feeling in his stomach, a feeling that told him all of this was wrong that Sokka was wrong.

“Just don’t let her realize you don’t remember her,” Sokka said jokingly, trying to lighten the moment, Jet felt like he remembered that about this kid. He was a joker. 

“Yeah,” Jet said.

“I mean I doubt she was your first but well-“

“Yeah.” Jet forced a laugh. “That would be awkward.”

“So what are you thinking we should do to get Mai and Ty Lee away from Azula?” Sokka asked.

Jet thought for a moment. “If you want my honest opinion, not much. Ty Lee likes me and Mai is already on her own team. What they do is gonna be a total wild card. I’m not saying disregard them or anything because they will come for us, but watch out most for Azula, pitted against Zuko head to head like this, it’s only a matter of time before her whole world comes crashing down. Especially if I don’t play along with her stupid games,” he added.

“What do you mean play along?”

Jet took a deep breath. He wasn’t sure how much information it would be pertinent to divulge. “I’m part of the trap,” Jet said. “Azula’s been trying to get me to agree to bring Zuko in as long as I’ve been here. Really, I should, but the truth is, I don’t want her on the throne.”

“You want Zuko on the throne?” Sokka asked.

“What else even vaguely makes sense?” 

“Iroh?” Sokka suggested.

Jet really did laugh at him this time. “That old fuddy-duddy?” He asked.

Sokka’s eyes narrowed.

“He’d never take it,” Jet went on. “He’s never wanted to be Firelord. He was already considering abdication long before Lu Ten died. Hell, if he hadn’t been, I wouldn’t exist.”

“What’s that mean?” Sokka asked.

“Iroh’s dalliances had already called his loyalty to the fatherland into question,” Jet told the other boy with a vague gesture to himself.

“I don’t-“ Sokka started, but Jet cut him off.

“Forget it,” he said. “Iroh can’t be Firelord. We’re well past that.”

“So it’s Zuko or Azula?” Sokka asked. 

“Plain as day.”

“Then I’m with you. Azula needs to go down,” Sokka said.

Jet regarded the other boy for a second. “Alright,” he said then, pushing himself off the wall so he was pivoted to face the other fully, “I’ll tell you what you need to know.”

“Haven’t you already?” Sokka asked.

“I’ve been feeling you out,” Jet said, making Sokka’s brow wrinkle. “Listen, there are at least ten Dai Li agents in the prison as we speak. Azula brought them back from Ba Sing Se and if you were there you’d understand the threat they pose to this operation.”

Judging by the look on Sokka’s face, it was clear he did.

“Wasn’t there something they did to you?” Sokka asked.

“I don’t know,” Jet admitted.

“Katara had to heal your head because you were acting funny,” the other boy recalled and it was Jet’s turn to frown.

“I don’t remember that,” he said.

“When we get back, I’m sure she’ll be willing to help again. Katara’s come a long way as a healer.”

Jet nodded.

“Aang said that there was something Long Feng said to you. Like a catchphrase and you sort of lost control. I saw something like it while we were here. We met a water bender who’d been kidnapped and she’d developed a form of bending that attacked the blood and allowed her to control people, but it was more like they bent your head or something.”

“You think they can still do that?” Jet asked nervously.

“Well there’s only one way to find out, but we should watch out for it,” Sokka said. “I’m glad you were able to be honest with me,” he added, clapping a hand over Jet’s shoulder. “We both want the same things.”

Jet tried not to flinch at the touch, watching Sokka’s hand silently until the other boy removed it. 

“Alright, I’m gonna figure out how to release the prisoners from lock down. You’ll all rendezvous on the main yard by the stairwell to start a diversion and we’ll use the chaos to hijack the gondola.”

“And if Azula shows up,” Jet said.

“If Azula shows up, we find a way to use Zuko against her,” Sokka said. “But I think maybe I should leave that to you. You seem a little better at the head games.”

Jet smiled at this. “And if she has some sort of catch phrase that makes me go bonkers?” Jet asked.

Sokka leveled him with a grave stare. So Jet grabbed him behind the neck and pulled him real close.

“If she does,” he said, eyes locked on the other boy’s so he’d trapped him, “You get me to Zuko and you let him handle it, okay? He’ll know what to do. He knows me.”

“Alright,” Sokka said with a small nod and then he was gone.

It wasn’t long after that that his cell slid open on an odd scene, two guards standing on either side of Zuko, hand shard on his arms. 

“What’s going on?” Jet asked.

“On your feet prisoner,” one of them barked and so he listened, coming over to the door, letting himself be shoved out it down the hallway. 

“Where are we going?” He asked as he was bustled into line with Zuko.

“Warden wants to see you,” one of the guard’s barked.

The warden was waiting in one of the interrogation rooms. “You’re lucky my family loyalty has delayed me reporting your presence to the princess,” he said as the guards sat them both down in identical chairs.

Mai, Jet thought, and certainly enough, the girl seemed to materialize from the hallway behind them. 

“Hello Zuko,” she said. Zuko just hung his head. “I was wondering when you’d show up. We all were,” she added.

“I’ll leave you to it,” the warden said then, waving his guards out of the room, “My men will be in the hallway outside the door.”

“Thank you, uncle,” Mai said softly.

When the door rattled shut, Zuko lifted his head, “Mai, I’m sorry.”

“Well sorry doesn’t cut it,” she snapped. “All I get is a letter? You could have at least looked me in the eye when you ripped my heart out.”

“I warned you about that letter, Highness,” Jet hissed under his breath.

“And you,” Mai said, rounding on him, “Lying to my face when the two of you were screwing around behind my back the whole time.”

Zuko groaned, burying his face in his hands but Jet just crossed his arms and stared her defiantly in the eye.

“You think I’m supposed to be casually open with you about the truth when it’s an exceptionable offense?” He asked.

“Well that doesn’t mean you should lead me on,” she bit back. “The sight of you both makes me sick.”

“I didn’t mean to-“ Zuko started but she cut him off.

“You didn’t mean to? To what? Lie to me? You’re a coward, Zuko.”

“I know,” the prince hissed into his own palm.

“Let’s hear it then,” she added, holding the letter up. “‘Dear Mai,” she read, “I’m sorry that you have to find out this way, but I’m leaving.’ You could even put it down in words here why, could you? You couldn’t even be honest while you were dumping me.”

“Stop!” Zuko barked, “This was never about dumping you."

“No, it wasn’t,” she argued. “It was about eloping with your fancy little boy toy.”

“No!” Zuko shouted. “This is about the Fire Nation!”

“Thanks, Zuko. That makes me feel all better,” she deadpanned, tossing the letter at his head.

Zukko grimaced, standing up to face her while Jet caught the letter. “Mai,” he could hear the Prince saying as he ran his eyes over the characters, “I never meant to hurt you. But I have to do this to save my country.”

“Save it?” She demanded. “You’re betraying your country. You’re running out on your own fiancé for some Earth Kingdom street rat who can’t offer you any heirs because he’s not even a woman.”

“That’s not how I see it,” Zuko said staunchly. “I told you this isn’t about Jet. Or at least, not about what’s between us. It’s about the debt we owe the whole world. You saw what we’re doing over there. You lived in the Colonies. You know there’s no justification for this war. My feelings don’t matter,” he insisted.

“Can I say something?” Jet asked, drawing a hot glare from Mai even as they pointed silence offered clear permission. “I’m not here to steal your boyfriend,” he assured her, earning him a scoff. “I’m not,” he insisted. “What I want is to see him on the throne instead of Azula.” Here, her eyes narrowed in a way that told him she was finally listening. “You have to know she’s too unhinged to be trusted with that kind of power,” he pressed and a sort of reservation passed over Mai’s face.

“There’s nothing I can do about it,” she said.

But Jet wasn’t going to be deterred. “That’s just what she wants you to think,” he insisted. “You want an outsider’s perspective?” Mai glared but said nothing to stop him giving it to her, “Azula’s little group is weak. She’s treated the both of you badly and you resent her for it, even Ty Lee,” he insisted as Mai opened her mouth to interrupt him. “If you were to turn on her,” he said, “Ty Lee would side with you.”

“No she wouldn’t,” Mai snapped. “You can’t know that.”

“Suit yourself,” Jet said. “Be her pet for the rest of your life. That’s all she thinks of you as. Sure, maybe we’ve hurt you by lying to you but at least we respect you. I know Zuko does, I know he’s trying for you, and I really didn’t think this,” he paused, shaking the letter in her face, “Was a good idea for a second. I told him he should say it to your face. I said you deserved that.”

“It’s true,” Zuko muttered.

“You’re gonna be the Fire Lady someday,” Jet insisted, watching Mai’s eyes widen a little bit at the assurance. “I can never threaten that position, not matter what,” he continued. “And I’d never want to. So you think about that,” he added.

Just then, the door slid open and a frantic guard stuck his head through it, “Ma’am, there’s a riot going on! I’m here to protect you!”

“I don’t need any protection,” Mai snapped, Zuko backing her up.

“I’m sorry,” the guard said, pushing his way in, “But I’m under direct orders from your uncle to make sure nothing happens,” and Jet felt it then, the flicker in Zuko’s fire that meant this was their moment.

Almost in unison, both of them dropped into stance, Zuko shooting a fireball at the guard’s feet as they both launched out of the room. 

“Get off of me!” Mai shouted as the man tried to shield her with his body, throwing him across the room and making a bid for the door even as Jet slammed it shut behind them. There was a moment as they melted the lock shut that some sort of poignant eye contact passed between her and Zuko through the slit in the door and Jet felt every inch of the other boy’s reluctance in his chi before it was over and they were off down the hallway.

The yard was already a mess by the time they got there, and crossing it was proved difficult even for the two of them.

“Keep your eyes peeled for your sister and the Dai Li,” Jet warned.

“Because of course they’re all here,” Zuko hissed as they fended off a guard and joined up with the others huddled against the base of a wall by the stairwell Sokka had indicated to Jet earlier.

“Jet, Zuko, good! We’re all here,” Sokka said. “Now all we need to do is grab the warden and get to the gondolas.”

“And how do we do that?” Zuko asked.

Jet faintly heard Sokka say, “I’m not sure,” but his eyes, like Sokka’s father’s were trained on Suki and then next thing, before he’d even thought about it, he was following her, bounding over the crowd using heads and shoulders as launch pads, one right after the other. He wasn’t even sure where they were going but he knew that look. She had spotted the warden.

Gracefully, she flipped up a wall, grabbing onto an overhang with her feet and catching Jet’s hands to form a human ladder before catapulting herself up after him. There were three guards they made quick work of before she jumped up onto the railing, using his shoulder for an extra height boost to jump scrambling up a sheer wall, as Jet struggled to keep up.

And she didn’t give him the time to which was good because it was her utter confidence that really won’t them the Warden in the end. When she started, she was aware that gave her an advantage and she didn’t stop until she’d pressed it as far as it would go. But then, Jet thought it was good he had followed her because winning the Warden and keeping the Warden were two different things and the second was a job that required more hands than the first. A number of the guards Suki had taken out were back on their feet and Jet found his hands full keeping them back.

In short order, the others had joined them but not before they’d been almost entirely overwhelmed.

“We’ve got the Warden!” Suki shouted as Zuko laid down a volley of cover fire, “Now let’s get out of here!”

“That’s some girl,” Jet heard Sokka’s father say as he and Suki pressed the advance. There were a few more flights of stairs before they reached the gondola platform but they went up them mostly unmolested.

Suki and Jet half dragged, half carried the Warden between them, Jet threatening to burn the man’s face off the second the guards on the platform moved to stop them. 

Defensively, Zuko dropped into bending stance. “Back off!” he shouted, “We’ve got the Warden!” Silently, the guards fell into line and Zuko motioned them forward with a terse, “Let’s go.”

Jet continued onward, rushing the Warden onto the gondola with Suki before he even realized Zuko had hesitated on the platform. 

“Zuko,” he muttered, looking around himself. There the Prince was on the platform, messing around with the controls. Jet looked wildly at Sokka. “Why aren’t you the one out there?!” He demanded. Behind the boy, his father frowned but Jet pushed onward. “What are you gonna do? Take his place if he dies?!” he demanded as the Gondola began to pull away from the station.

“Zuko!” Sokka shouted out the window as Jet rushed to it, but Zuko had busied himself breaking off the manual control so they couldn’t be followed.

“Zuko, jump!” Jet shouted, half lunging out the window, so he was braced only between his hand on the metal above him and his hip on the sill.

The Prince shot him half a smirk as he launched himself off the platform, hand landing squarely in Jet’s palm and Sokka helped him real him in, grabbing Jet by the shoulders and pulling him back so he could heave Zuko through the window.

“What are you doing?!” Sokka demanded once Zuko was safely inside.

“I’m making it so they can’t stop us,” Zuko said.

“Don’t be fucking reckless,” Jet cut in.

“We’re on our way,” Suki commented as Jet’s attention found its way back to the platform, joining Sokka’s father in watching just as a few more figures, these smaller - less armored, joined the others at the station.

“Wait,” the man said, “Who’s that?”

“That’s a problem,” Jet said.

“It’s my sister and her friend,” Zuko explained just as Azula and Ty Lee began to move.

“Worse,” Jet said, ignoring the jolt on the cable as Ty Lee jumped up onto it. “It’s the Dai Li.”

Four new men had just appeared, wearing their characteristic flat hats and green robes.

“Shit,” Zuko muttered behind him.

“What a time to wish you had Toph around,” Sokka said.

Jet looked between the two advancing threats, Ty Lee on the wire, Azula hanging from it, using her fire to propel her forward. “We need to speed things up,” he said, slapping Zuko on the arm.

Zuko gave him a confused look as Jet leveled both his fists out the window. “Back me up, he barked as he fired duel columns of flame into the air, mimicking Azula’s move.

“Bastard!” He heard her scream as the Gondola sped its pace. 

It wasn’t a second longer before Zuko joined him, pouring as much energy as he could into the blast. 

Beyond the rippling air that rose off the lake and shimmered around their own fire, Jet saw the Dai Li trying to jam whatever dirt there was for them to bend into the cable mechanism. Maybe they wouldn’t be such a bad threat up here, he realized then, with no earth at all to rely on.

“Keep pushing,” he told Zuko. “We might have to make it out of here on Willpower alone.”

“Azula’s gaining,” Sokka said from a. Side window.

“We can’t let her board us,” Zuko snapped, dropping one of his blasts and leveling a fireball at Azula.

“Why not?” Suki asked. “I’ve been waiting for this rematch.”

“Trust me, Suki, this is a bad fight to pick right now,” Sokka was saying but Azula had batted Zuko’s fireball away like it was nothing, hardly even stopping in her tracks to do so. 

“We’re not picking it,” Suki said as Ty Lee’s weight landed on them, almost entirely ignored as she’d made her progress on the wire.

“We’re slowing down,” Jet noticed nearly in that same moment, glaring at the Dai Li who had now completely jammed the mechanism with dirt.

“Is someone gonna deal with Ty Lee?” Jet asked. 

“Suki’s on it,” Zuko told him, “and Sokka’s following her. You stay here and keep pushing. I’m gonna go see what I can’t do about Azula.”

“No helping it,” Jet said, redoubling his effort to keep them moving. 

It was too much exertion. The lines of his muscles shook and ached, but he tried to focus on the heat in the air around him, use it to his advantage even as the sweat began to drip from the ends of his hair. 

Up above him, the echoes of the fight raged on in little tremors that tipped them this way and that. 

“Jet!” Azula was cackling outside, playing hell on his concentration, making his fire come in fits and starts.

“You okay?” Sokka’s dad asked him.

“Cover my ears!” Jet snapped at the man.

And Sokka’s dad looked confused but he didn’t question him, slapping his hands over Jet’s ears, holding firm even as the gondola lurched this way and that. Neither one of them had the presence of mind to notice the Warden slipping his binding behind them.

“Cut the line!” The man bellowed loud enough even Jet heard it and Sokka’s father let go in order to wrestle the man back, leaving Jet alone and unprotected.

“Can’t you hear me, Jet?” Azula was calling and he couldn’t listen, he knew from experience he couldn’t listen. He could remember looking at the Fire Lord’s face through a red tinted lens and the heat that had coated his body then. He knew what she would do to him. So he closed his eyes and he screamed as loud as he could.

The Gondola went through another violent series of lurches and then Zuko was inside, hand on his shoulder, “They’re cutting the line! The gondola’s about to go!” He snapped.

“I hope this thing floats,” Jet could hear Sokka’s father say.

“If we keep pushing,” Jet hissed through his gritted teeth, “Maybe we’ll still make it.”

But Zuko wasn’t listening to him, his eyes were fixed on some spot out the window. “Mai,” he said softly.

Jet couldn’t describe the relief he felt hearing that name as Zuko joined him in pushing them the rest of the way into the station. It was so complete, he was able to ground himself in the task again. He was shaky and exhausted by the time they were safe enough over the platform and Zuko had to half carry him off as Sokka’s father made a backhanded apology to the Warden.

“Well we made it out,” Suki said. “Now what?”

Zuko stopped, looking thoughtfully behind him. “My sister was on that island,” he said dumbly.

“Yeah,” Sokka said, “and she’s probably right behind us so let’s not stop!”

But Zuko shook his head. “What I mean is she must’ve come here somehow.”

“Her war balloon,” Jet realized.

Sure enough there it was, just over the ridge, waiting to provide them safe, undetected, passage out of Fire Nation waters.

“That was close,” Jet said as Zuko helped him up the gangplank. 

“But you made it,” the Prince said as he lowered him down to the floor. 

“More like you made it,” Jet spat. “What was all that shit?! Acting the fucking hero?! You could have gotten yourself killed!”

Zuko’s face fell into open shock as Suki stepped up behind him.

“Hey,” she said, laying a hand on the Prince’s shoulder. “Why don’t we all just calm down and try to rest up until we get back?”

“Fine,” Jet spat at the same time Zuko said, “Whatever.”

And they spent the trip in almost total silence as Sokka caught up with his father, Suki sitting deliberately between them in an attempt to keep the peace like she knew just looking at them the history there was too complicated to have predictable outcomes. Around them, the sun slowly set, staining the clouds shades of orange and purple. By the time they reached the canyon where the Avatar was camped, it was fully dark out and a smattering of people were waiting for them out on a narrow platform below.

“What are you doing in this thing?” A girl Jet just knew was Katara, was asking. “What happened to the war balloon?”

“It kinda got destroyed,” Zuko said casually.

And then Jet heard the Avatar speak, such a light, distinctive voice. It stuck some inexplicable emotional chord deep down in his chest. 

“Sounds like a crazy fishing trip.” 

He really was alive. He really had made it despite all Azula’s efforts. He’d pulled through.

An odd guilt he’d never really taken the time to acknowledge settled somewhere deep in his stomach, replaced by the tiniest flicker of hope. Peering out the door, he could even see the kid, just like he’d remembered, with his bald head and his blue tattoos.

He lost the rest of the conversation staring at the last line of defense they had against the Fire Nation, half way not believing the sight before his eyes until Zuko was pulling him out into the open. “And Jet,” he said. “I didn’t realize you guys knew each other before Sokka told me when we got there.”

The reception he received was much different than the one Sokka’s father had. Not that this was surprising in anyway really, just that it was so mixed he couldn’t tell what to make of it.

Katara had looked up, arm still half around her father when she heard his name and Jet really couldn’t place where he remembered her from but he did. She’d been crying last time he saw her too. She’d been the girl with the Avatar. That was right. The look on her face seeing him was some strange combination of too many emotions that was even more obscured by the tears of joy already on her cheeks.

“Oh you’re not dead,” the girl next to the Avatar said but the Avatar just sort of blinked at him like he didn’t know what to make of this new development.

“Hey,” Jet said, holding up a lame hand in greeting. “Long time no see.”

It was an awkward reunion. Jet couldn’t imagine when between everything he’d ever gotten the chance to sleep with the Avatar’s girlfriend, but looking at her, the way she responded to him, half guarded, half compassionate, it was clear they’d had a complicated split and that information made good sense of it. She saw him and Zuko back to the room Zuko had taken for himself away from the others, lingering awkwardly in the doorway.

“I guess I should tell The Duke you’re here,” she said.

Jet wasn’t sure who she was talking about but he was reticent to ask. She and Sokka didn’t really make sense to him. They weren’t people he’d ever really thought about within his memory, but he certainly had a lot to think when he thought about them now. 

“If you want,” he told her with a shrug.

“Well, we were gonna start dinner so you guys could catch up there,” she said and her tone was warm enough but Jet caught her glaring at Zuko. “Can I talk to you? For a second?” She asked the Prince.

Zuko shrugged and followed her a ways down the hallway so Jet had to strain his ears to listen.

“Look, I don’t know what you’re playing at, but I don’t like it,” she said. “I know you’re trying to use him to get sympathy points with the group.”

“What?!” Zuko demanded. “I didn’t even know you all had history. Jet’s just some guy I met on a ferry to Ba Sing Se, where I only ever went to start my life over and leave this crazy life behind me.”

“I don’t know why you expect us to believe all that,” Katara snapped.

“Because it’s true,” Jet threw in, leaning out the doorway to address them. “I was there.”

“Whatever!” She said, throwing her hands up in the air. “So you two are friends, big whoop,” and she stomped off down the hall.

“That girl has issues,” Jet decided.

“Maybe they have to do with you being such an asshat,” Zuko snipped as he walked back into the room.

“Don’t blame it all on me, you’re a dick too,” Jet said defensively. “Did you bring anything to eat from home?” He asked then. “I’m hungry but I don’t know if I can handle group dinner.”

Zuko frowned as he started rummaging through a pack at the foot of his bed. “What do you mean, home?” He asked.

“The Fire Nation,” Jet said in a tone that made it clear how stupid he thought that question was but the look on Zuko’s face as he heard that left him feeling wrong and disconcerted. It was a shocked sort of look. The kind someone gave you when they couldn’t believe what you were saying.

“But you’re not from the Fire Nation,” Zuko said.


	3. Chapter 3

“Well I know that,” Jet said with a forced sort of laugh.

Zuko nodded, eyes still wide, “Okay,” he said.

“It’s just I spent so much time there, it is sort of home now isn’t it?” Jet tried but Zuko shook his head.

“I don’t think you’d ever feel that,” he corrected.

Jet shut his mouth so quickly, his teeth clacked together. “Let’s go see how dinner’s coming,” he said then.

Out in the main courtyard, the rest of the kids had pulled their bedrolls out and we using them as sitting cushions while Katara stirred a pot over the fire.

“Glad you could join us,” she said stiffly as they both stepped into the light. “Might have been nice to get the fire started a little quicker.”

There was a tense silence from everyone else, Jet noticed. Around him, a bunch of children sat on the floor, Aang, Sokka, Suki, the girl in green, a couple of boys he didn’t recognize and another one, this one smaller than all the rest, that he did but couldn’t place. Jet blinked at this boy but the kid just shrunk behind one of the boys Jet didn’t recognize.

“So which one’s The Duke?” He asked and a soft sort of gasp went through almost everyone in the group.

“What do you mean which ones The Duke?!” The girl in green demanded.

“Well Katara s-“

“Just sit down,” Zuko snapped, shoving him onto the same bedroll as the girl in green.

“I’m Toph,” she said, holding a hand toward him without bothering to turn her head. Jet took it tentatively, finding it covered in course callouses and grime that immediately gave her away as an eath bender. “We’ve met before but I’m pretty sure if you don’t remember The Duke, you don’t remember me.”

“Cool,” Jet said. “Where’d we meet?”

“Ba Sing Se,” she explained.

“Do I know all of you from Ba Sing Se?” He asked then, casting his gaze over the group. Everyone but Sokka’s father, Suki and the kids he didn’t know, who were clearly confused, seemed to be suffering some sort of mutual pain for him. 

“Uh, no,” Sokka said. 

“Is something wrong with him?” Katara asked.

“Well you know the Dai Li thing?” Sokka said.

And Katara said, “Oh,” flatly.

“My sister brought them back to the palace with her,” Zuko explained. “Called it an insurance policy.”

A murmur of understanding swept over the group. 

“Anyway,” Jet said, “Long time no see.”

“Hey,” said the Avatar with something that boarded on reluctance, holding up a hand in greeting. The two kids he didn’t recognize looked about awkwardly, eyes toward the floor. 

“Maybe I should go,” Jet said then, moving to get up but Katara called after him.

“Wait,” she said. “I know it’s a little awkward but why don’t you just try not to think about it?” She suggested. “We’ve all been really worried about you after what happened in the caves,” she added with a split second side eye in Zuko’s direction.

“Don’t blame Hot Stuff,” Jet told her. 

Katara took a short, shallow breath and turned back to her soup. 

“She doesn’t like me,” Zuko explained. 

“Yeah I noticed.”

“So I guess we all spent our summer in the Fire Nation then,” the Avatar commented. 

“Yeah,” Jet agreed. 

“Did you spend the whole time in the palace?” Toph asked.

“Most of it,” Jet admitted. 

“That must be a contrast,” the Avatar said.

“Sure,” Jet agreed. It had been a huge one compared to roughing it on the road and the cramped little apartments in Ba Sing Se.

Which was when the little kid that he couldn’t place said, “You must have missed the forest.”

Something ached hard in Jet’s chest at those words. Something as unplaceable as the kid’s face.

“He painted my childhood bedroom to look like a bunch of trees,” Zuko explained. “Drove the servants crazy.”

Jet didn’t remember that but he didn’t argue. He was starting to get the feeling everyone else knew a lot more about his life than he did. And what was more, this tidbit of information seemed to mollify most of the kids around them.

“Hey,” Jet said, catching the eye of the little kid, “You’re The Duke, aren’t you?”

The kid nodded.

“You wanna tell me about the Forest, The Duke?” He asked and a huge smile split out over the kid’s face as he rocketed up to standing from his seat. 

“We’re the Freedom Fighters and we come from the Trees!” The kid bellowed. “We had a whole city up in the leaves and we sang like birds so loud you could hear when it was time for dinner from three miles away! It was our job to fight the Fire Nation and keep the Village safe!”

Jet nodded, trying his best to soak the information up. Something in the words felt as tantalizing as it was terrifying. 

“You were our leader,” the kid went on, a little more subdued now, “But Pipsqueak said you made bad choices. He said that’s why everyone left. Even you, Jet.”

“That’s when we met in Ba Sing Se,” Zuko said then, picking the story up seamlessly. “You were on the same ferry I was for the same reason. You’d come to start your life over same as Me and my Uncle. You had Smellerbee and Longshot with you. They stuck by you.”

Jet glared at his own soup. None of that made sense. Sure they’d been on the ferry at the same time for the same reason because they were there together, sure Smellerbee and Longshot had been there, but they hadn’t just met. That was ridiculous.

“I was pretending to be a common refugee, but you thought I showed promise and you tried to recruit me.”

“Without knowing anything about you?” Jet asked, and even to him his tone sounded defensive, but he knew for a fact he would never do something like that. Zuko was telling stories on him. They all were. 

Zuko shrugged a single shoulder. “It didn’t last long. Almost as soon as we got to shore you spotted us for the Firebenders we were. Next thing I knew you were crawling all over us, stalking me everywhere I went in the city. You came to the tea shop where we worked and challenged me to a sword fight,” he explained, laughing to himself.

“That sounds right,” Sokka agreed. 

“That’s when you got arrested,” Zuko said.

“Which was how you met back up with us,” the Avatar took over.

“Wait,” Jet said, he was starting to get legitimately pissed now, “Met _back_ up with you?”

“We were there for your bad choices,” Katara said coldly to the pot of soup and something about the way she said it made him really reluctant to know what it was they thought he did.

“Man,” Jet said. “Guess you’re all pretty miffed but I don’t remember any of that.”

She heaved a heavy sigh and turned on her seat to face him. “Look,” she said, “I was really angry when we left Gaipan, but I think I get it now. I’m not saying I forgive you,” she added, voice tightening further, “But I think I get it.”

“Thanks,” Jet said blankly. He had no idea what to make of this. Gaipan sounded familiar but none of what they were saying made any kind of sense. None of it.

“Do you… wanna tell me who this kid is, honey?” Her father asked.

“No,” she snapped, glaring daggers at him so sharp the temperature in the room dropped. Katara was like a tempest, Jet decided. She swirled as cold and as lively inside as Azula did but the edges of her energy were rounded where Azula’s were sharp. “Dinner’s ready,” she announced then and Sokka got up to bring her a pile of bowls so she could serve everyone a portion.

“Well this is a dinner atmosphere,” Toph commented as she accepted her bowl from Sokka. 

Zuko hid a snicker as he passed Jet the bowl Sokka handed him and took a second. 

“I’m serious,” she pressed. “I haven’t had a meal this lively since my father tried to take us out to eat on my sixth birthday while still keeping me a secret from all the waiting staff.”

“How did they keep you a secret?” Suki asked.

“They draped me in a sheet and pretended I was a baby goat-gorilla they’d just bought from King Bumi. Joke’s on them thinking I was too _young and innocent_ to play that story up,” she added with a laugh.

Jet decided he liked Toph. Her easy banter and irreverent attitude made him feel a bit more at ease in the tense atmosphere of the group. And she seemed to like him, he thought. She definitely liked Zuko. In a kind of tough, brotherly sort of way almost, like she was used to being one of the boys, or maybe had always wanted to be. It was hard to tell. She made him think of Smellerbee a bit.

“Your parents sound like dweebs,” the one kid who’s name Jet hadn’t caught yet said. 

Toph laughed. “Yeah,” she agreed. “They pretty much are but who’s aren’t,” she continued, nodding her head in Sokka’s dad’s general direction with an added, “No offense.”

“None taken,” the man said. A few beats passed in a more comfortable silence before the man spoke again, “So Jet,” he said. “How would you say you met my daughter?”

Jet offered him a one shouldered shrug. “In the forest,” he chanced.

“Do we have to get into this?” Katara snapped, rounding on her father. “Can’t you just leave it alone?”

“I’m just curiou-“

“They met while we were in the Earth Kingdom okay?!” Aang burst in. “Sokka had this stupid idea that we should all walk through the forest to avoid the Fire Nation spotting us and we walked right into their camp so of course Jet swooped in to save the day!”

“I’ve never heard this story,” Zuko commented, but Sokka cut in with a flat, “You now how it ends.”

“How does it end?” His father asked. 

Which was when Jet, who also knew how it ended asked, “What’s your name again?”

“Hakkoda,” the man said.  
“Pleased to meet you,” Jet said, offering the man his hand over Toph.

“Right,” she said. “Just shake hands right over me like I’m not even here.” So Jet ruffled her hair and went back to eating his soup. 

It was good soup despite being a bit on the salty side. Katara was a good cook.

“The fact that you all keep dodging the point is starting to really worry me,” Hakkoda said.

“Maybe you should lighten up,” Toph suggested.

“Let it go, dad,” Sokka said.

“The Duke is right there,” Suki threw in.

And reluctantly, Hakkoda dropped the conversation.

“Is this about how we blew up a dam?” The Duke asked.

“That’s one way of putting it,” Jet muttered into his soup. Beside him, Zuko had to cover his face to keep hot broth from squirting out his nose. But no one else in earshot seemed to get the joke.

After dinner, Jet followed Zuko back to his room, and carefully, Zuko reached into a second pack, pulling out a pair of the clothes they’d packed from home. The palace, he corrected himself.

The Dai Li had been messing with his head for- well only the Spirits knew how long at this point. The best assumption that could be made was that he could not rely on his memories being true any longer no matter how angry it made him to listen to everyone else tell him who he was, it was more likely they were telling the truth than Azula.

Zuko helped him strip out of the prison uniform he’d been wearing and step into his own clothes. They fit nicely, lying soft on his skin, and it felt a miracle to be out of that hell fabric he’d been wearing, back in the clothes Zuko had bought him that summer.

“I’m sorry,” Zuko muttered softly to his chest once he’d gotten Jet fully dressed. He didn’t specify what for but Jet didn’t need him to. He could tell exactly what the Prince was taking about, and it wasn’t as if he hadn’t suffered his mixed feelings about being left behind, but he also knew what all was at stake. 

“We talked about it before we went in there, didn’t we?” Jet reminded him.

“Yeah,” Zuko said, biting at his own lip.

“You might think of me as irreplaceable, but at the end of the day, I’m just a soldier,” Jet explained, but Zuko shook his head.

“It’s not like that,” the Prince insisted.

“Zuko,” Jet said, trying to make it clear how serious this was. “You need to be the next Fire Lord. There is no other option.”

“But I don’t want it,” the Prince whispered.

Softly, Jet ran his hand up the other boy’s side. 

“I’m tired of my destiny,” the Prince muttered, voice nearly silent in the still space.

Jet took a tiny step closer, bridging the gap between them so they stood nearly chest to chest, heads bowed over each other’s shoulders.

“I know,” he promised, and Zuko’s head dropped the final fifth of an inch it needed to drop to rest on his clavicle. 

They didn’t say the most obvious thing that was left to be said between them. Neither admitted to missing the other, but Jet got the feeling they both just sort of knew and saying it out loud would only be redundant.

That night, for the first night since the Eclipse, they slept in the same bed, pushed up side by side on the narrow mattress just like they’d been on Ember Island.

“Well good morning,” Katara snapped quietly as they entered the courtyard at dawn. She and Aang seemed to be the only other people awake, but bags under her eyes told stories about how wiling her participation in the morning really was. 

“Sifu Hotman!” The Avatar crowed before either of them had a chance to respond to Katara’s greeting and before Jet knew it, the kid had advanced, quickly, on the Prince, arms wide like a bird in flight and grabbed onto Zuko’s hand, “Should we be starting our practice?! What kind of katas are we gonna learn today?! Will you teach me how to breathe fire?!”

“Um,” Zuko said nervously. “I was thinking I’d go over a few things with Jet first.”

“Oh,” Aang said, face falling at he turned to regard Jet personally for the first time that day, “Yeah. Jet firebirds now,” he said flatly.

Jet rolled his lips together and bent to pick a blade of grass out from between the brick they stood on so he’d have something to chew on. 

“It’s just I was sort of training him before,” Zuko went on, a hand on the back of his neck, “With assistance, but now it’s been nearly a month and my sister was training him, I think, so I need to know what it is he’s learned.”

“I know,” Aang said, tone all disappointment.

“Why don’t you and I do a little water bending practice?” Katara suggested. 

“Yeah,” Aang sighed reluctantly.

He and Katara gathered up in the space around the fountain while Zuko lead Jet out into one of the courtyards the sun could actually hit. It felt nice, standing there with the sun on him, able to smell grass and leaves and natural things instead of metal and coal. In his chest, his fire felt strong but tame like it burned in a hearth to keep him warm rather than eating away at him like it did sometimes. 

Beside him, Zuko felt the same. So still, Jet could feel him breathing. 

“I’d say we should start with steel but my father confiscated those shang gou I bought you,” he said. 

“Haven’t had a chance to pick me up a new pair? It’s only been like a month,” Jet said. He was joking but Zuko’s face fell anyway. 

“Hey it’s not a big deal,” he tried. “I’ve always got bending.”

“You’re kind of a novice,” Zuko muttered.

“Since when?” Jet demanded.

“Look,” Zuko said, “I know you’re good but you’ve had steel by you your whole life. The fire is new.”

Jet glared at him. That wasn’t what he remembered but then again he also didn’t remember The Duke or the forest the kid talked about, or the Freedom Fighters, though those words felt like they held some special significance. What Jet remembered was being brought home to the Father Land when he was ten by Iroh, after Lu Ten had died, training with the Prince and the Princess most of his life. What he remembered was the fire always being there, burning in his veins.

“Let’s do this then,” Jet snapped, dropping into stance, hand held palm up in front of Zuko. “Mock duel. Agni Kai. We’ll see if I’m a novice.”

Zuko glared at him before slowly bringing his own arm up, “Fine,” he said, lining them up side by side, forearm to forearm, wrists touching. He understood the significance of a mock duel to test them against each other just like Jet did. This was about proving he had the power to fend for himself. Hadn’t he always been the one looking out for Zuko? Hadn’t that always been his place. Who was this brat to treat him like he was made of porcelain. 

Clay, his mind corrected. Everyone knew he was clay. 

They started slow, feeling each other out with test strikes before aiming anything big at one another. Before long they were trading fire like they almost meant it. There was a lot to fight for. Sure Zuko was the Prince and Jet could never forget that but there were times he was the one to call the shots. Times Zuko needed to listen. That’s what this was about. 

Whatever Zuko thought about his skill level, whatever reason he had to think it, it had been a month since they’d last been close enough to test each other’s skill and in that month at least, if in no other, all Jet had had was his own fire. 

Zuko planted his feet against the flag stone, preforming a quick series of arm motions Jet recognized well and Jet hit the ground, moving along it as low as he could, coming up under the Prince’s defenses with a blast to the bottom of the chin.

Zuko swore and stumbled backward. Unable to complete the form, he instead fired off the energy he’d already built with the half he’d preformed, pushing a plume of fire into Jet’s chest so he was forced back. 

A foot of space between them, they paced each other like animals, looking for weaknesses in each other’s defense.

“Fine,” Zuko said. “You fight like a bender.”

“I don’t know why that’s surprising,” Jet snapped.

“But your footwork is still all wrong!” The Prince bellowed, firing a ball toward Jet’s head and using the distraction as Jet dissipated it to sweep him off his feet.

Jet hit the ground hard, loosing almost half the air in his lungs before rolling up onto his shoulders and flipping back on his feet. The breath he took was hard won, but filled his lungs deep into the bottoms of their lobes, heating his stomach as he grounded his stance. 

For whatever reason Zuko didn’t see it coming before Jet had vomited a massive flame into his face. The Prince swore, struggling to beat back the blaze as it crackled around his fingers.

“Enough!” He shouted, as he finally broke through it and Jet heard a murmuring from the shaded veranda where the rest of their rag tag little ‘team’ had lain sleeping only about five minutes before. “I get it! Azula trained you well!”

“Azula,” Jet spat. “I trained me!”

“Explains your footwork,” Zuko said derisively, wiping sweat off his brow and in the moment his eyes were shaded by his hand, Jet socked him hard in the chest.

Zuko swore again, batting his hand away, twisting his wrist up and now this was a real fight. Jet smiled as he leaned back and the Prince followed him. They tumbled end over end, Jet flipping them so he had the Prince pinned, fist in his face, trembling gently as the smoke rose off his knuckles.

“Fuck you!” Zuko spat from the floor. 

“Always glorious in defeat,” Jet said sarcastically.

“Always playing dirty,” Zuko snapped as he pulled himself back up into a sitting position the second Jet let off him. Then his eyes suddenly trained on some point back on the shaded veranda.

They’d gathered an audience, Jet realized, as he turned around. 

Aang, Sokka, Suki and Toph were all sitting on the stone slabs that surrounded the yard they’d been practicing on, Katara looming over their shoulders with a look on her face of mixed anger and confusion.

“Impressive,” Sokka said, with a mocking slow clap.

“He actually means that,” Toph clarified.

“Yeah, Jet. It’s almost hard to believe you didn’t know you were a fire bender at all until a few months ago,” the Avatar said.

“He didn’t?” Suki asked.

“News to me too,” Jet said flatly. His attention wasn’t on the assemblage any longer, but on The Duke, still sitting on his bedroll over in the center of the sleeping arrangement, a look of terror stricken over his tiny face. 

That made him feel like shit he realized but he had no idea why. 

“Aang, get up here,” Zuko called to the Avatar who was quick to his feet and even quicker to the Prince’s side.

“Sifu Hotman,” he said, dipping into a proper bow.

“You’ll be training with the both of us today. Try not to pick up any of Jet’s bad habits.”

So they did. Even if suddenly Jet felt wrong doing this where all these people could watch. They started with meditation, which was something he was pretty good at these days, or had been before they got here. Now, all he could think of was the look on The Duke’s face. The fire in him burned erratic under his shame.

“Alright that’s enough,” Zuko declared after about twenty minutes. “Aang, you’re good in raw power but you’re still too nervous. Jet was afraid of fire when he first started bending too but he’s come a long way. I think maybe it’d be a good idea if he showed you some of the fire puppets we were working on this summer.”

“Cool,” Jet said. “But it’s been a while since I really worked on them so I might be a little rusty.”

“Wait,” Aang said, “You know fire puppets?”

Jet gave him a smile. “Here, I call this one The Fire Prince,” he said, drawing a tiny puppet that was just defined enough to effect a three dimensional, if stylized, human figure with a top knot shaped like a the Crown Prince’s crest and pointed shoulder pads up from the palm of his left hand with the fingers of his right. 

“Oh!” He cried, throwing the puppets arm over it’s face with a crook of his finger, “My Honor!”

“Woah,” Aang said like this was the neatest trick he’s ever seen.

“Yeah, real funny,” Zuko snapped.

“How did you do that?” Aang asked.

“Practice,” Jet boasted. “We trained with Master Jiao-Long while we were in the capital. She says it’s one of our nation’s Fine Arts.”

“I know,” Aang said. “I mean I’ve seen it before. When I was,” here he trailed off, rubbing at the back of his neck, “Younger… I guess.”

“What does that mean?” Jet asked Zuko.

“Aang was stuck in an iceberg for like a hundred years,” the Prince told him.

Jet felt his eyebrows jerk up his forehead. “Sound’s cold,” he said.

The Avatar only shrugged. “Eh. You get used to it. Can you show me how to make a rabbadillo?”

By the time Katara called them over for lunch, Aang seemed only about half as cold toward him which Jet found kind of calming. “Well you seem like you had fun,” she said as they all sat down. 

The Duke was sitting across the remains of the cooking fire, watching Jet uneasily but Jet tried to ignore it as Aang recounted everything he’d learned that day even though Katara had been close enough to the action she’d probably seen most of it.

“What about you,” she asked as she handed him his bowl. “Are you okay?”

Jet shrugged. That was a complicated question. If he answered her honestly he’d probably be explaining himself all day. “Just a bit fuzzy,” he decided to say and she nodded understandingly but Zuko’s eyes narrowed.

“How about after lunch, you come sit with me by the fountain?” She suggested.

“Sure,” he said blankly.

Which was when Zuko asked, “Where’s everyone else? Haru, Hakkoda Toph?”

“They went off with Sokka and Suki to find meat like an hour ago. If you ask me, I think they’re all just swimming,” she said with a shrug. 

“I decided not to go because my wheels would just get stuck in the mud,” Teo threw in.

“I don’t see the big deal with meat,” Aang said. “Everyone seems so hug up on it.”

“Hard to be a fire bender without meat,” Zuko said.

Jet heard that, pointing emphatically as he swallowed a too-hot mouthful the same soup they’d eaten last night.

“How are you a fire bender?” The Duke asked suddenly and a weird silence fell over the group then.

“When we were in Ba Sing Se, a group of soldiers called the Dai Li did something to Jet’s head,” Katara explained, making the kid frown nervously. “They sort of rearranged his memories and confused him so I tried to help with my water bending and it turns out he was a fire bender the whole time. He just didn’t know it.”

The Duke stared at him with a kind of open confusion that burrowed deep under Jet’s skin, making him curl up around his bowl.

“But Jet hates fire benders,” he argued. 

Jet could feel it starting to burn in him, the shame, turning into a kind of anger that singed in his throat like stomach bile.

“He did,” Aang cut in. “And he hated them so much, it changed who he was.”

“Can you all stop fucking talking about me like you know me?!” He demanded. The bowl of soup in his hands was beginning to bubble. “You all piss me off! I don’t remember any of what you talk about. Freedom Fighters?!” He scoffed. 

Everyone’s faces went a grave kind of pale, even Suki and Teo’s.

“Jet, calm down,” Katara tried.

“Stop fucking telling me what to feel!” He shouted and he could taste the fire in his mouth now, but Zuko just reached out and calmly laid his hand across the back of Jet’s neck, the way he’d always done when Jet got too hot under the collar, stealing his fire from him.

“You should listen to her,” the Prince said sternly, even as Jet eyed him impotently.

“I don’t need your help,” she snapped, standing up so she towered over them. Gracefully, she crossed the circle and held her hands out for Jet. “I’m sorry,” she said. “You must be really confused. Let’s go sit by the fountain,” she finished, glaring at Zuko.

Reluctantly, Jet took her hands and Zuko’s grip slid away.

It should have been a beautiful day but he couldn’t enjoy it at all, not even with her next to him, a cool and calming presence like the sound of waves on the beach.

“Sit,” she told him once she’d pulled him over to the edge of the water so he did, shooting another look at Zuko for reassurance but the Prince was pretending to ignore them as he finished his food. 

“Now close your eyes.” Jet listened, closing his eyes so all he could see was the faint red glow of the daylight through his eyelids.

It was an odd feeling. Cold touched down in the shape of hands on either side of his temples and he could feel it, like she was a current rushing through his mind, soothing over the burnt earth like fresh rain.

Then the memories came. Flashes of things that made no sense. Images of plants, birds, people, all of which felt as familiar as they did foreign. Smellerbee. His mind caught here on this thought like he’d been thrown at it. He could see her like she was right in front of him, shivering in the dirt with nowhere to go and the need hit him like that rock under Lake Laogai should have. The need to comfort her. The need to give her food and a roof over her head.

His arm had gone out before he even realized it, pushing Katara back. “Stop!” He said. 

He felt sick. Viscerally sick. The kind of sick you get when you’ve had too much to drink and it could probably kill you sick. She’d been so little and she’d been his responsibility. It’d just been he three of them then, him and Longshot and Smellerbee. That’s how it should have always been. Nothing should ever have changed. They hadn’t betrayed him. They’d never betrayed him. 

It was Zuko.

Something hard and heavy seemed to be pushing upward out of his stomach and he opened his mouth, expecting fire, but it was vomit instead. Hard, fast puke that came frothy out his mouth and nose at once. Distantly, he could feel Katara’s hands on his back and shoulder, hear Zuko shouting something and then he couldn’t hear or feel anything. It was like the world went quiet and dark.


	4. Chapter 4

When he woke up, he was alone in the little room Zuko had chosen to stay in, tucked back into the temple, and he wasn’t one person anymore. He was two people. Two different people with distinct lives, experiences and opinions so disparate as to be utterly irreconcilable. 

The person he had been; orphan, outcast, leader of the Freedom Fighters, someone who hated the Fire Nation. And the person he’d been told he was; the Prince’s bastard cousin. Iroh’s half recognized mistake, still second rank in his own father’s heart even to the Prince but comfortable with that- given, even despite that, to nothing but the notion of installing Zuko on the throne.

Neither of them could make sense of the other and so the memories fought, warring, negotiating, stabbing each other in the back, between his ears as he lay there staring at the ceiling, body alternating between hot and cold as his fire came in and out of focus, for who knew how long. Until finally, Katara came in with some more soup and sat next to his bed.

“If I’d realized you were awake, I would have come sooner,” she told him. 

He grunted a vague response. 

“I’ve got you now, though, so you’ll be okay,” she added confidently, helping him to sit up so that he could eat his soup.

First, she tried to spoon it to him but he batted her hands away, taking the bowl for himself. 

“Where’s Highness?” He managed. 

“He’s running drills with Aang,” she said plainly, before switching topic as well as affect, “How are you feeling?”

“Fine,” he lied. She glared at him. “Little fuzzy,” he relented. It was half way true. He felt every bit as fuzzy as he did clear and level headed. 

“You worried everyone passing out like that yesterday,” she said. “Maybe you should tell me what you remembered.”

The image of Smellerbee, tiny, shivering and hungry flashed before his eyes. She was his- he didn’t even know how to describe her but she was his. His responsibility. And this whole situation- Zuko- he needed to kill Zuko -had taken him away from her.

“No,” he said. Going into it seemed like the worst idea. he needed to keep himself on track, personal feelings or not. There was only one way to end this war, to keep it from ever happening again and that was keeping Zuko alive.

Sozin’s comet was only a few weeks away and after that there would be no more going back. 

“You’ve been through a lot,” she said. “It might be best to get it off your chest.”

He took a sip of his soup and ignored her. “How long do you think they’ll be out there?” He asked.

“Who?”

“Zuko and Aang.”

Her face fell. “I don’t know,” she said with an eyeroll.

Jet looked at her, looked at her hands, the way she sat, curled in on herself as if too keep the very idea of Zuko out. “What’s your problem with him?” He asked.

“My problem?” She said, snatching her hands back from him. “Everything! What about you?! Don’t you have a problem with that?!”

He didn’t know how to answer that question. He had a kind of love for Zuko as the palace rat he might of been- maybe more than a kind of love, he wasn’t sure -that seemed almost as strong as the hatred he felt toward him as the street rat he’d actually been. 

“Li was just,” he started, struggling, struggling hard, “Trying to make a better life.” The look on Katara’s face couldn’t have been more shocked, “I should have left him alone.”

“He’s not someone you can just trust! He helped the Fire Nation conquer the city!”

“Yeah and maybe he wouldn’t have if I’d been his friend instead of attacking him like I did! Did you think about that?! Huh?!” He demanded, tossing his soup bowl out of his hand as it began to sputter and boil.

She flinched and fell quiet.

“At the end of the day, I’m just like him,” he finished quietly, hands fisted in the light blanket that had been thrown over him. 

“You’re not j-“

“Well then what about Giapan!?” He snapped.

She rolled her lips together in a thin line. “Maybe I should let you calm down,” she half whispered, and then she stood up and left him there alone.

But there wasn’t a way to deal with it so he decided to just not. Lying around feeling sorry for himself or trying to suss the situation out seemed pointless. All it would do was make everything worse. So he rolled out of bed, got himself dressed, and joined practice out on the yard but it was harder to keep up than it had been yesterday. His fire kept guttering in and out of potency until Zuko called a stop to things and pulled him aside, down one of the many long hallways, into the cliff face and out of sight. 

“We need to talk,” he said once they were alone. 

Jet grunted a nothing sort of reply that only really communicated he was listening and scuffed the toe of his boot on the floor.

“Yesterday, you showed an impressive amount of improvement but today you’re all over the place. The way this is going, I’m not sure we can rely on you as a combatant.”

“Fuck you too,” Jet snapped but when he met the Prince’s eyes they didn’t seem unkind.

“I’m not saying you’re useless,” Zuko said very deliberately. “You’re more than capable with your shang gou or even a pair of dao. Even if you can’t burn your enemies you can still hurt them, and you’re probably the best strategist out of all of us. Even Sokka. We need your head in the game.”

“I know,” Jet muttered.

Zuko’s hand was warm and reassuring on his shoulder. “I know a lot’s happened between us,” that was true, looking at his face, Jet could see Li and Zuko both at once, the tea shop waiter and the Fire Prince existing simultaneously just like he was. “And I’m sorry for everything… But I need you to be you right now. Not who my sister made you.”

The words felt heavy. Jet took them in his hands and turned them over like fire hardened stone. Here he was, nothing but a clay pot that had broken in the kiln and there Zuko was, still trying to put him back together again. 

And he hated Zuko.

But not more than he trusted Zuko. 

So he did what he wanted to. He slid a hand up behind the Prince’s neck and stepped a bit closer, tucking his head just that tiniest bit so their mouths were lined up and he could breath Zuko’s fire. Warm, and gentle. Detestable, but dependable all at once. It felt reassuring. This had been the thing that brought him past the fear. Being able to meet Zuko’s fire head on.

Something stilled in him. 

This was the one thing both his halves had in common. How much they wanted to fix this broken shell of a person. He was the only thing they could agree on. No matter how much he might want to see Zuko suffer, it would never be more than he wanted to see Zuko win. 

And he was okay with that. That was all okay.

Zuko leaned into him, the hand on his shoulder sliding up into his hair and pulling him closer so their mouths really met.

“We’re doing this together,” he said against Jet’s ear when they broke for air.

They stood there like that in the hallway, Jet turning so Zuko leaned back against the wall, able to bear more of his weight, not doing anything other than just sharing their body heat. And he didn’t think about it because that’s what he wanted. All other feelings aside, he didn’t want to ruin his ability to just be close to the person he knew Zuko was. Just like he never wanted to do anything against Longshot or Smellerbee.

Zuko was his. Zuko had promised he was his.

“We need to get him ready,” Zuko said, breath tickling against his hair. “I’m not sure he can do it. He’s just a kid.”

“So was I,” Jet said to the plaster. “The first time.”

Zuko’s hands, warm on the small of his back, fisting and unfitting in the fabric of his shirt. “I know.” The smell of his skin. The only comfort Jet had had for the past two months. “That’s why I need you to be the one to teach him.”

Jet understood perfectly. 

If he closed his eyes in the dark, he could see it behind his eyelids, death and life balanced perfectly in the fire between them. Zuko burning in the hearth and him burning in the trees. 

They had so much ground to cover, so much world to tame. The world needed a new shape and it was in their hands. The Avatar was in their hands. He couldn’t think about Smellerbee, how much he missed her, how much he missed Longshot. There just wasn’t time. Like there wasn’t time for this.

“Let’s go,” he said, taking his weight back on his own feet. 

His fire felt steady now in his hands, as steady as his shang gou once had, and Zuko felt steady beside him.

The day faded into a hot noon and their practice broke when Katara again called them to lunch. 

“Lookin’ pretty good out there,” Katara told Aang as they all sat down.

“Yeah, soon Jet’ll be callin’ you Hot Stuff,” Sokka threw in. He and Suki were sitting cuddled up by a wall, Teo beside them fiddling with some contraption in his lap.

A ways away, Haru had lifed the Duke onto his shoulders to inspect a spiderweb that had appeared that morning, and further down the stone steps, Toph and Hakkoda were engaged in an animated discussion about what made things fall.

“I doubt it,” Jet said, taking a seat on the ground not too far from the small assemblage. To his satisfaction, Zuko followed his lead without thought.

“So do I,” the Prince said. “Jet’s rubbing off on Aang in all the wrong ways. Apparently his sloppy footwork is closer to the style an airbender’s traditionally taught with so teaching the both of them at once is just asking to root the problem in.

“Why don’t you separate their study, then?” Suki suggested.

But Zuko shook his head. “Can’t,” he said resolutely, “There are too many other beneficial things I think Jet could leand to our regimen.”

“Like what?” Teo asked, regarding Jet curiously through his goggles. 

This was the first real, direct interaction Jet felt he’d had with the boy, who seemed to be The Duke’s favorite person in their little assemblage, mostly because he was reticent to approach The Duke with the kind of anxiety he seemed to inspire in the kid. 

“Jet’s been fighting all his life. It’s a stark contrast to Aang, or even me, raised fighting in Dojos with controlled environments. He’s got a better idea of how to adapt to his surroundings, better situational awareness, a better understanding of how to find an enemy’s weaknesses within a short period of time, and he’s good at deploying counter strategies quickly in the heat of the moment. Not to mention, he’s not the type to hesitate when the time comes to put someone down,” Zuko explained.

Jet joined the rest of their small splinter group in gawking at the Fire Prince. 

“Well you certainly think highly of him,” Suki said with a smirk.

But Zuko didn’t catch the implication. “I don’t think anything,” he said. “I know because I’ve had Jet come at me full force-“ Suki’s mouth did this thing where it twisted into her cheeks like she was trying to hold back a laugh. “-and we planned an assassination attempt together while we were in Caldera. On his own, without bending, he was able to stand up against my father without getting seriously injured. Even when my father used the Dai Li trigger phrase on him and told him to kill me.”

“Wow,” Sokka said. “That is all news,” then he turned to Suki and asked, “Does Katara know about this?” But Suki only shrugged.

“But I heard Aang say he wasn’t willing to kill anyone,” Teo said, bringing the conversation back around. “Why would Jet be the one to convince him?”

“It’s the only chance we have,” Zuko said. “If Jet can’t get through to Aang, no one can.”

Jet felt a feeling of dread settling in the pit of his stomach.

“Did someone say my name?” Aang asked then, suddenly appearing over their shoulder with bowls of soup.

“Vegetable soup again?” Sokka complained. “Why is it so hard to get real food around here.”

“If you hate my cooking so much, why don’t you do it from now on?” Katara asked.

“We could go hunting,” Jet suggested, accepting his own bowl even as Aang glared at him for the suggestion. “You got a problem?” He asked.

But Aang only said, “No,” and continued to hand out bowls.

“I can’t cook meat for everyone and make nothing for Aang,” Katara said. 

Jet took a sip of his soup and braced his arm across his knee, “Fine, I’ll cook it,” he decided. “Then we’ll have options. People can pick and choose. We’ve got a big enough group that makes sense.”

“Alright,” Katara said, sitting down between him and Teo, “But just don’t expect anyone to prefer my cooking over yours.”

“Jet’s cooking?!” The Duke called as Haru carried him back over to the circle. 

“Not yet, little man,” Jet said. “But I’ll see what I can do about dinner.”

Katara stuck her tongue out at him good-naturedly, but across the circle, Aang- sitting next to Suki -didn’t seem to find it so amusing. 

“I wanted to apologize,” she said. “I know you were upset this morning and I didn’t really help.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he told her as Toph made a grand entrance to the meal by declaring she could prove the world was round, instantly grabbing Sokka and Teo up into a heated discussion.

“Katara,” Hakkoda called from outside the circle. “Can we talk?”

She heaved a sigh and pushed herself to her feet quick enough but not without rolling her eyes. 

“I don’t think he likes you,” Zuko whispered half into Jet’s ear.

“Yeah, well she doesn’t like you so we’re even,” Jet said.

After the meal, he rounded up his hunting party. Sokka and Suki for good thinking and agility, Toph for a better field of view through the underbrush and for on the fly dynamic traps, and The Duke in case their game got itself somewhere too small for the rest of them to follow. 

By dusk, they’d caught themselves a young deer-dog, which Jet thought was the perfect amount of meat to last all of them through a good four meals which would likely be consumed before it ever spoiled if they cooked it properly.

“Yeeeugh,” Aang said when he saw them at the entrance to Toph’s shortcut tunnel, their kill tied to a stick between Jet and Sokka. “Don’t let Appa see that.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it too much, Twinkletoes, I’ve already got an idea where I should bleed it,” Jet assured him much to Toph’s approval.

“Bleed it?!” Aang demanded.

So Sokka said, “I told you we should have done it in the woods. He can’t handle the reality.”

“If we’d butchered it in the woods, we’d have been more likely to soil the meat,” Jet argued. “This isn’t the Arctic or wherever you’re from. The meat doesn’t stay fresh in this weather.”

“It’s called the Antarctic, but I see your point,” Sokka conceded as they made their way out to the open courtyard Zuko had been drilling them on in the morning. 

“Good catch,” Teo said as they paraded past him, catching Toph up in an excited retelling of the hunt which Aang watched disapprovingly from a distance.

They strung its hind legs up to a tree and Suki watched while Jet sent The Duke to fetch them a bucket. The kid seemed more at ease around him when the promise of food was on the table, and he didn’t mind it one bit. 

He was about to just go for it as soon as they got the bucket but Sokka stopped him. “I know you do things your way here, but I’d like to take a moment so we can honor his spirit right,” he said with a gesture to the fawn.

“Right on,” Jet agreed.

Sokka motioned for Jet to join him, keeling before the little deer-dog while he laid out a cloth and set his butchering knives out on it almost lovingly. It was a calming little ritual. Jet tried his best to take the same roll of follower he did when Zuko showed him a new form. When Sokka moved to slit the animals throat, he cupped the back of it’s neck and steadied the bucket.

“We give you our thanks for your life and promise to honor you in ours,” he said softly as the blood began its languid drip over the fawn’s chin. 

“I don’t think we’ll be able to butcher _and_ cook him in time for dinner,” Jet said. 

“Yeah,” Sokka agreed. “We’re gonna be working up until the dinner bell.”

Jet shrugged. “That’s fine,” he decided. “Zuko and I can camp here tonight and keep a fire going for him so he’s good by morning.”

“Oh I know a way to do that,” Suki said, “But you’d need to dig yourselves a pretty big hole.”

“Did someone say the words “Dig” and “Hole” over there or are my ears playing tricks on me?” Toph asked from where she’d settled with Teo, Haru and The Duke. Looked like they had that base covered with two earth benders just waiting around for something to do.

“Where’s Zuko?” Jet asked, noting the Prince’s sudden scarcity.

Teo shrugged, but Haru said, “He said something about praying and then sort of wandered off.”

“Probably in his room then,” Jet concluded. That was a bit of a shame. Part of what he loved so much about the whole process of getting and making food was the way it brought everyone together. Back in the forest, when it’d been just him and his freedom fighters, the arrival of a day’s game was cause for celebration. But Jet knew better than to interrupt Zuko’s spirituality. That was a lesson he’d already learned well. Zuko would join them when he’d finished and not a moment sooner.

“Where’s Katara?” He asked.

“Oh she and her dad went to take a walk or something,” Teo said.

Jet winced and Sokka winced along with him. 

“He does know Katara and I weren’t a thing for very long, right?” Jet asked but Sokka just sighed and heaved a one shouldered shrug.

“I’m not sure he has any idea what’s going on with you but you make him nervous. Maybe you should explain what happened in Gaipan,” he suggested.

“I’d really rather not,” Jet told him.

The steady drip of blood into the bucket kept time until Katara and Hakkoda returned. She looked annoyed but Aang was on her faster than you could say ‘possum-chicken’ anyway, gesturing in their general direction as he went through some huge explanation. Jet saw her take a deep breath and lay her hand on Aang’s shoulder calmingly before steering him over to the fountain.

Hakkoda, however, took one look across the courtyard at Sokka and Jet, knelt by their bleeding catch and made a beeline straight for them.

“My daughter assured me, You’re at no risk of becoming my son in law,” he said gravely. “I don’t want you to take this as an insult, but I hope that remains the case.”

Jet blinked up at the man. He was pretty intimidating, and certainly strong, his arms looked like logs crossed over his chest. “No problem,” Jet said.

Sokka’s jaw worked a second before he turned to his father. “Do you wanna help out?” He asked, offering his father his knife. “We were just about to start gutting him.”

“Sure,” Hakkoda said. His hands seemed massive against Sokka’s as he took the blade. Then he crossed to the kill and, making certain not to damage any of the internal membranes, ran the edge of the blade from its groin to its sternum.

“So, Jet,” he began as he worked, “My daughter didn’t have much to say about what went on between the two of you. In fact. She was almost dodgy about the subject.”

“Maybe because no one wants to talk about the with their own dad,” Suki interrupted.

“Yeah, dad, leave it alone,” Sokka said. 

“I’m just trying to look out for your sister.”

“Katara left me frozen to a tree the day we called it off,” Jet recalled, “I think she can look out for herself.” 

Hakkoda raised an eyebrow at him.

“Besides,” Sokka put in, taking the knife back and sheering the some of hide away from the muscle, “Aang’s pretty much submitted a formal application to woo her already.”

“And I’m not in the dating pool right now,” Jet said. 

“Oh?” Suki asked, almost conspiratorially, “and why not?”

“I’m a little swamped with killing the Fire Lord and baby sitting to be thinking about dating right now,” he told her flatly.

“Alright,” she said, holding her hands up, “No need to get defensive.”

Steadily, they gutted the deer-dog, pulling it’s innards out and sorting them into piles based on edibility and usefulness. The three of them working together made somewhat quick work of it and it wasn’t long until Katara joined them to wring out the intestines, pulling Suki into the dirty work with her despite all protests. After that, slowly, the entire group joined in, Toph excited to get her hands dirty, Teo not wanting to be left out, Haru digit them the pit they needed and enlisting The Duke to help him gather the right sort of wood.

“This is something you’ve all done before, and I’m so lost,” Suki complained.

But Toph was quick to speak up, “I haven’t either! Just squeeze the tube!” And as she said this, she hand her grip along the length of intestine she was cleaning, forcing excitement out so it slapped wetly on the tile so Suki groaned and winced.

“Look at the mess you’ve made!” Zuko complained when he finally reappeared from inside the temple. “How am I supposed to use this as a training space if there’s blood and guts everywhere?!”

Jet looked up from helping Sokka peel the skin back so the membranes between it and the meat below could be carefully cut without damaging the hide. “Aang and Katara will just waterbend it clean,” he suggested. “Good as new.”

“Only if you ask nicely,” Katara needled.

“Oh, Katara please clean up my pissy shitty mess I made on Zuko’s precious volley ball court,” Jet joked.

She gave him a pleased sort of smile before crossing her arms without touching her dirty hands to herself in anyway. “Request approved,” she decreed.

“Great Katara, I am at your mercy,” Jet replied.

“Well you’re not at mine!” Aang called from over by the fountain. 

“Oh great, now the Avatar has no mercy,” Sokka said. “Thank’s jet!” which got a good laugh out of almost everyone.

Soon, they had it all ready, a pit, the kindling. They packed it all in tight, laid the deer-dog, still nearly whole without it’s skin and innards, in over it and packed more around the edges before Jet threw a few sparks in the hole and Toph covered it up.

Then, Katara helped them all wash their hands clean and swept the yard with water so that the mess ran over the edge into the canyon. 

“I was thinking we could have more soup leftovers for dinner,” she suggested then.

No one was particularly jazzed about the idea after having had soup and only soup for spirits knew how long they’d been eating soup, Jet had only been there for a few meals so far so certainly he couldn’t even guess, but none of them complained either.

Katara gathered them all up and they chatted more easily than they had at previous meals, passing stories over the fire as the sun set, enjoying each other’s company for once. Jet almost felt a part of the group, like he was back with the Freedom Fighters and it was such a heady feeling, he hardly noticed Aang sulking in the corner, hardly touching his own food.


End file.
